SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS–THE MUSICAL
at Annoyance Theatre
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Which is why the more I see of Sean Abley’s work, the more I think he (and his gang of coconspirators at the Factory Theater) are onto something. True, their first long-running late-night hit, Reefer Madness, was little more than a Soloway-style word-for-word stage adaptation. But ever since Attack of the Killer B’s opened last March, it’s been clear that Abley et al are trying to do something more ambitious than The Real Live Brady Bunch’s mild, ambivalent satire. (I never could figure out whether the Soloways meant to mock or revel in the sitcom’s hokey dialogue, obvious plots, and early-70s fashions.)
The film’s plot is pure holiday B-movie dreck: the Martians, a race of nerd types, kidnap Santa Claus because their civilization lacks that jolly holiday spirit. In captivity Santa, as befits a man of the red cloth, ends up conquering the Martians with love: he sets up the Mars equivalent of his north-pole factory, teaches Martian children the spirit of Christmas, and even ordains a Martian Santa.
I wish I could say the same about this year’s edition of Metraform’s annual Soloway-esque appropriation of a holiday classic, Santa Claus Is Coming to Town. Based on the animated holiday TV special of the same name, Metraform’s Santa Claus lacks both the dramatic coherence and satiric edge that made previous appropriations, such as the brilliant live version of A Charlie Brown Christmas, more than mere stage re-creations.
